


To Live Deliberately

by itmightbehere



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: DnD Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12112047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itmightbehere/pseuds/itmightbehere
Summary: Marigold Hollysharp has spent the last year as an adventurer, but it's not her natural state. So how did she come to be on the road?





	To Live Deliberately

**Author's Note:**

> My DM is having our party go back to Marigold's hometown in our current campaign, so I finally sat down and wrote her backstory up. I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm always down for suggestions!

Marigold Hollysharp was the only child of Marven and Marella Hollysharp, unusual in a race known for large and boisterous families. Marven, a carpenter, and Marella, an herbalist, raised their daughter in Dewhollow, a small village deep in a forest known only as The Wood. Quiet and self-sustaining, Dewhollow’s only interactions were with the nearby Gnomish town of Thimbletweed, the Orcish town of Rizakh, and the rare passing ranger, trader, or lost traveler. The valley was too far from civilization to have any draw for the outside world, but it was quiet and peaceful, and it was home.

Growing up, Marigold could often be found with one of her parents, wandering the wood surrounding her home village. As she grew older, she found she was more comfortable away from the village. The other halfling children were friendly enough, but they weren’t interested in the forest like she was. She spent all of her time learning the ways of the local flora and fauna, badgering the rangers for tales of adventure, and practicing sword fighting with her friend Ducky, the child of gnomish traders from Thimbletweed. She had the natural halfling charm, but her heart was found in the solitude of the trees. No one was surprised when she became a ranger once old enough to choose a profession.

Time passed, and while everyone knew Marigold was the best protector their village could ask for, her job kept her away from town most of the time. This made it difficult to form relationships with others. She was much too busy ridding the forest of poachers and troublemakers, serving as a guide to travelers, and dealing with wildlife who came too close to the villages for comfort. She had Ducky and her fellow rangers, but she had no one with whom to settle down and raise a family. By the time she was in her mid-fifties, she’d resigned herself to being alone. She was the only halfling her age that hadn’t yet bonded and, while she had no real interest in marriage or children, she did wish for more from time to time. 

It was on a day that she was feeling particularly sorry for herself that she first met Leodak Woodheart, a handsome halfling rogue from Neverwinter. He was clever and funny, knowledgeable enough about the wilds to impress even a veteran ranger, and so different from anyone she had met previously that he stood out in any crowd. He didn’t settle in, coming and going often on some mysterious business he refused to talk about, but every time he was nearby he would seek Mari out. It wasn’t long before she fell for him and started dreaming about maybe, finally, having someone just for herself. 

A year after she’d first met him, Leodak stopped coming to Dewhollow. At first she waited, then she searched for him in and out of The Wood, but she could find no mention of him anywhere. When she discovered she was pregnant, she stopped the search. She feared being far from civilization if something were to happen to her or her unborn child. For a time, she left the trees and moved back into Dewhollow, staying with her parents through her pregnancy. While she’d never planned on children, she couldn’t really regret her time with Leodak. It hurt that he was gone, though, and so she did her best to forget him. She rejoiced when her daughter was born and named her Ophrys, after the exotic orchids her mother grew. For a while, it was enough. Sadly, she was never good at settling down, and it wasn’t long before she left Ophrys in her parents’ care and returned to the woods.

For 25 years, Marigold continued as she always had, spending most of her time away from Dewhollow. Her long absences meant that her relationship with her daughter was strained.  They were too similar in temperament, and Ophrys resembled Leodak enough that it made Mari uncomfortable.  They dearly loved each other, though, and both did what they could to engage in each other’s lives. Mari was delighted when Ophrys chose to be an herbalist, like Marella, and took her often into the forest to find the freshest herbs. When she fell in love with Xavmorn Goldweaver, the town’s mayor, Mari made sure to encourage and support their marriage as much as she could. When Ophrys and Xavmorn announced they were expecting a child, she helped to throw the biggest party Dewhollow had ever seen. 

It wasn’t long after that party that Marigold realized something was wrong in The Wood. It began when she found animals slaughtered and dismembered, their meat left to rot but their pelts gone. Swathes of trees were cut down and the wood was carted away. Whoever had done it left obvious trails, but they led beyond the borders of The Wood, far past where Marigold had ever been. She followed them for a ways, but she knew she needed guidance before she set out further. She and Xavmorn had gathered representatives from all three towns to discuss what needed to be done on the day Leodak returned to Dewhollow at the head of a company of mercenaries.

He stood at the edge of the meeting place, older and with more scars than Mari remembered, but still just as handsome. She felt her heart skip a few beats in surprise and delight when their eyes met, and  she was suddenly 55 and in love for the first time again. Their stare lasted for only a moment, then he dismissively looked away. She felt her heart break. As he spoke to the gathered townspeople, any remaining affection she had felt for him boiled away into rage.

The Wood was the ancestral property of Lord Arroway of Neverwinter. As far back as their history remembered, the Arroways were content to leave the residents of The Wood be in exchange for a very reasonable sum of taxes. Leodak had returned to Dewhollow to deliver the news that Lord Panros Arroway, who had been their Lord for the past 60 years, had passed on. His son, Lord Daven Arroway, was not content to leave The Wood alone. Even in Dewhollow, they had heard of the greed of the Arroway heir, and an untapped resource was clearly more than he could bear. 

Leodak smiled as he told them that the taxes they paid were being tripled, that they would be expected to also provide meat and wood and other resources as Lord Arroway saw fit. The mercenaries, an ugly lot he introduced as the Fellwater Fists, would be moving in to keep an eye on things. He emphasized that all their needs were to be seen to, and as he did so a particularly nasty specimen in the group behind him shot a leer at a pretty halfling lass in the crowd.

Marigold spoke up then, angry at the presumption of these evil men and the faraway nobleman who had never even entered The Wood. She railed at the injustice of these sudden changes and the unreasonable expectations they brought, but Leodak didn’t seem concerned. He gave her a look of mock-pity as he explained that as the owner of this land, it was Lord Arroway’s right to do with it as he pleased, and he pleased to make use of its resources. He announced that if they didn’t like the cost of living here any longer, they were free to leave, but this was home and no one wanted to do that.

As Marigold fumed, Xavmorn presented another option. If the owner of the land could choose what they did with it, surely he wouldn’t mind selling it to another. After all, it was far away from Neverwinter, and there wasn’t much in The Wood that was worth anything. Leodak agreed that it made sense, and that as Lord Arroway’s representative, he would be willing to negotiate on his behalf. After a moment of thought, he decided on a sum of no less than 250,000 gold for all of The Wood. Marigold didn’t know much about land value, but that number seemed extravagant, and was certainly more than the total gold held by every halfling, gnome, and orc in The Wood.  

Still, there was no other option. These changes could not be abided. She vowed there and then she would do whatever it took to gain the funds to buy her land away. She prepared for the next week, helping Xavmorn choose who would stay and protect the land and who would venture forth to find the gold they needed. She spent as much time as she could talking to those who had recently been out of The Wood, which served the dual purpose of preparing her for her journey and helping her to avoid Leodak. She had never told Ophrys who her father was, and she did not know what would happen should either of them find out now. 

As she set out for Neverwinter a week after Lord Arroway’s men had arrived, she felt a pang of loss. There was no way of knowing if she would ever return to Dewhollow or if her quest to gain funds would kill her in the end. She only knew that, whatever the outcome, The Wood would never be the same.  
  



End file.
